I tested my two Havok armies against each other attempting to stick as closely to the rules as written as possible (it was difficult at times).
My Karn army consisted of 8 Troopers, 9 Darkest Suns, 6 Heavy Weapons, 2 Form Warriors and a Battle Form.
My Nexus force consisted of 5 47th Line, 5 Assault Troopers, 6 Nexus Troopers, 6 Kinsmen, 2 Hundred Warriors and a Hundred Battle Form.
There are no real scenarios in Havok… other than one – Kill everything. I decided not to play this (although it didn’t matter in the end) as this usually is the worst scenario to play. So sticking roughly to that I set a limit of four ‘Battle Rounds’, with the winning side being the one that killed the most points. I played the game long ways on a 2’x4’ and here was everything set up:
The turn structure is different from most games. Each player has a card for each unit type they have, so the Karn player in this instance would have 5 (Karn Troopers, Darkest Suns, Heavy Weapons, Form Warriors and Battle Form). Each player rolls a die and the higher roller chooses one of their cards, then all figures that card matches are activated, and that means all of them, no matter how many there are and no matter how many units that represents. Once those figures are done (they get to move and then attack), that card is flipped (so it can’t be used again in the same round), and the players roll off again.
In my game the Nexus forces got off to an excellent start, winning the roll off consistently and moving up before the Karn really got started.
At this point a few shots were traded, and a few Karn Troopers fell.
It was at this point that despite my reservations, the Nexus Troopers came into their own. Not being particularly threatening on paper, they didn’t take much fire, and then using their increased movement got to within that dreaded close range which doubled their number of shots which helped them kill three Darkest Suns, and with the Nexus Assault Troops also moving up on this same flank, Karn Heavy Weapons chose the more dangerous target as a priority, which then allowed the Nexus Troopers to eliminate them too.
The Karn were quickly losing control of the field as the Nexus moved up and effectively took ground.
A pivotal moment for the Karn came when their Heavy Weapons on the other flank took down the Nexus Battle Form. But it wasn’t long before all that stood was the Karn Battle Form and massed fire from the Nexus Assault Troopers destroyed it.
So what did I learn… Havok is essentially a game of movement. A unit with a move of 2 has the ability to jump from a -1 modifier to shooting up to a +1 in a single move. This means going from where an enemy can barely touch them, to a place where they will very likely cripple that enemy. I think in the points system (yes I do have the equation), movement is under-costed but I’ve only played one game so far, so we’ll see.
Battle Forms had me worried. They are Strength 6 and Armour 5. So you divide the number of hits they receive by 6, and they then make that many saves (not many as you can imagine). They successfully save on a 1-5 and only fail on a 6. I think this makes them a bit too luck based. In my game had the Nexus not gotten lucky, another round and the Karn Form could have wiped out the Nexus Assault Troops and then the remaining units wouldn’t have had the firepower to deal with the Battle Form. So despite the Nexus playing a better game, luck would have won it for the Karn. I understand that that’s often how it goes in war, but it would be a bit disheartening for a player in a game. I’ll play a few more times before I make a decision, but I think the Battle Form stats need fiddling with or we need to introduce an armours piercing stat or special rule. The other option would be to allow additional hits to hang around instead of being ignored, in this way smaller troops could contribute to bringing down something bigger, and maybe hits could be cancelled at the end of a battle round. In that way more saves would likely need to be made, and more chances of those 6s being rolled.
I’m close to having the beginnings of my Pteravore force painted, and then I’ll get in a few more games and likely have lots more thoughts.
Deathzap 